


Return

by autumnstwilight (sewohayami)



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Angst, F/M, One Shot, a bit of timeline fuckery, a child is born, yes we're done with the fluff now back to the regularly scheduled misery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 09:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14590185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewohayami/pseuds/autumnstwilight
Summary: He vanished, for months or even years at a time, across the borders and into the unknown lands beyond, where she could barely feel even a hint of him with her magic stretched to its limits. But he always returned to her.





	Return

**Author's Note:**

> writer tip: go spend several hours on something entirely unrelated to what you're meant to be writing

He always returned to her.

He vanished, for months or even years at a time, across the borders and into the unknown lands beyond, where she could barely feel even a hint of him with her magic stretched to its limits. He returned as an honored guest, playing the tune of the royal family on an ocarina that bore their crest, and no one questioned where he had gotten such a thing. When she had retired for the evening, they crept together through secret passageways and hidden rooms, their secret like a laugh they had shared when they were young, unknown to all but the queen’s most trusted servants. The lamplight would flicker on the stone walls, and he would tell her stories of the seas he had crossed, the realms he had travelled and the battles he had fought. Then he would stroke her hair and pull her close.

They never spoke of why he could or would not stay. She was the queen, she could have made it possible, would have if he had asked. He could be granted land and a title and _remain,_ in a corner of the world that would belong to the two of them. But there was a solemn reality between the two of them, one neither needed to put into words.

 _A child of war will never know peace._ She supposed the old saying was true.

Her hair was splayed across the pillow, shimmering in the light and shadow. His hand brushed her cheek and slid across her bare throat, down over her collarbone. She reached out and traced the ridge of yet another new scar, pensive, the pulse of his heart under her fingertips. He looked at her with guilty eyes, as if sorry for the worry that he caused, and she leaned in and pressed her lips to the wound. Happiness flickered like the lamplight.

And soon he was gone again.

It was in the fourth month, when the child in her was quickening. In her dream, she stood in a vast and shallow lake, with a bed of fine silt that sucked at her ankles as she walked, searching. The skies were overcast and mist hung above the mirror-calm waters, the world was dim silver in every direction, the horizon invisible. The landscape was featureless, but for a handful of dead and blackened trees, stark brushstrokes on an empty canvas. And he stood before her.

Blood ran like teardrops from his destroyed eye, the socket empty and deep red with gore. In the clear water, the fallen drops billowed like seeping ink, blossomed like twisting wildflowers. His remaining eye looked at her with the same sorrow as when she touched his scars. The ocarina was cradled in his hands with eggshell delicacy, and he held it out to her.

“I should have given it back.”

She awoke, with a pain like a knife in her chest, and retched.

A marriage of convenience was hastily arranged. She had reached out, many times, with all of her power and found no trace of her hero. Now she was numb, frozen over like Zora’s Domain _-but when had Zora’s Domain been frozen?-_ and the days passed her by. Only when her child was born did she once again feel tied to the world of the living. Her daughter’s laughter rang out like it was the only sound in the world.

It was an early morning, the sky yet dim, when she went to stroll through the courtyard, hoping the movement and the cool air would soothe her fussing child. Sleep still lingered over her like a haze, and in the half-light, even the familiar castle grounds looked like a forgotten dream. There were, she knew, spirits whose domain was dawn and dusk, another dimension that drew closer and cast its shadow over the world of light. A chill breeze struck, and she shivered and wrapped the child more tightly in her shawl.

It approached from across the yard, with the crouched walk of a predator, and she readied her power in the palm of her hand, preparing to defend herself and her child. Brilliant rays slipped between her fingers, filling the courtyard with stark light and shadow. The creature slowly drew nearer, and she gave a shout, brandishing the sphere of light in her hand. She could see now, the shape of its head and the nature of its movements, it was a wolf. In response to her actions, it neither attacked nor fled, simply sat before her, purposefully. Now it had emerged from the shadows, its fur shone gold in her light. It regarded her with a single eye.

“You…”

So much to be said and so much that never could be. She knelt before the wolf, and cautiously uncovered the child wrapped in her shawl. The wolf examined her daughter closely, pressing its snout against the pale wisps of hair on the child’s head. She reached out and placed a hand on the wolf’s jaw, its fur rough and bristly under her fingertips, head warm and heavy as it leaned into her touch. They remained so, until the rising sun breached the walls and shafts of light fell across the courtyard. Then the beast shrugged off her hand, and looked to the pink band of the sky in the east. It turned and walked away. Slipping into the space between shadow and light, it was gone.

Her child slept peacefully in her arms, a strand of golden fur clinging to a cheek flushed with cold. Behind her, the castle stirred with the maids and the servants and the cooks all preparing for their day’s work. The queen stood for a moment, the early sunlight warming her skin, and then she too, returned.

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose this is my attempt to come to terms with the Hero's Shade thing. Link from OoT was basically 12 year old me's video game boyfriend so when I came back to Zelda as an adult and found out the canon was now "oh by the way he died horribly and full of regret" I was... unthrilled with that decision. (Particularly the regret over "not being known as a hero" jarred with my image of the character, I don't see Link as enough of a gloryhound to mope around as a ghost for however many centuries waiting for someone to acknowledge him. Zelda knew, the sages knew, and I don't think he gives a damn what the rest of the world thinks.)
> 
> I have a bunch of different fix-it headcanons ranging from "DISREGARD ENTIRELY", to "its a timeline hopping version of Hero's Downfall Link and his regrets", to "the actual spirit of the hero did pass on peacefully and was reincarnated- the Hero's Shade is the regrets that he cast off, left to train his successor" to... this, I guess. I know some people think TP Link is literally OoT Link's son, but I think there's at least a few centuries between the games. So Zelda's child is a daughter, and hundreds of years later one of her descendants will be TP Zelda, while another branch of the family entirely will lead to TP Link (probably someone has a bastard child at some point and therefore that line loses their noble status and becomes farmers).


End file.
